SEO stands for "search engine optimization" and is the process of developing a web site to rank well in search engine results, and therefore provide more visitors. It can be a risky practice to employ a professional SEO to help gain more visitors, because he/she may use techniques that are deemed bad or "spammy" by search engines. This could result in the web site being penalized or banned from a search engine. However SEO is a vital part of designing a web site, and when done in a ethical manner should yield results. A favourite saying in SEO circles is that no matter how good a web site is it's useless without visitors, therefore SEO is always required in some form.